University of Wollongong Research Online Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts 1998 Non-conceptual content and objectivity Daniel Hutto University of Hertfordshire Publication Details Hutto, D. (1998). Non-conceptual content and objectivity. Electronic Journal of Analytic Philosophy, 6 (1998), Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact the UOW Library: research-pubs@uow.edu.au
Non-conceptual content and objectivity Abstract In recent times the question of whether or not there is such a thing as nonconceptual content has been the object of much serious attention. For analytical philosophers, the locus classicus of the view that there is such a phenomena is to be found in Evans remarks about perceptual experience in Varieties of Reference. He famously wrote: In general, we may regard a perceptual experience as an informational state of the subject: it has a certain content -- the world is represented a certain way -- and hence it permits of a non-derivative classification as true or false. For an internal state to be so regarded, it must have appropriate connections with behaviour -- it must have a certain motive force upon the actions of the subject... The informational states which a subject acquires through perception are non-conceptual, or nonconceptualised. Judgements based upon such states necessarily involve conceptualisation. (Evans 1982: 226-227). Keywords content, non, objectivity, conceptual Disciplines Arts and Humanities Law Publication Details Hutto, D. (1998). Non-conceptual content and objectivity. Electronic Journal of Analytic Philosophy, 6 (1998), This journal article is available at Research Online: http://ro.uow.edu.au/lhapapers/742
NonConceptual Content and Objectivity D. Hutto Aristotle once developed the difference between man and animal in the following way: animals can understand each other by indicating to each other what excites their desire so they can seek it, and what injures them, so they can flee from it. To men alone is logos given as well, so that they can make manifest to each other what is useful and harmful, and therefore what is right and wrong. A profound thesis. -- Gadamer, "Man and Language" 1. Introduction [1] In recent times the question of whether or not there is such a thing as nonconceptual content has been the object of much serious attention. For analytical philosophers, the locus classicus of the view that there is such a phenomena is to be found in Evans remarks about perceptual experience in Varieties of Reference. He famously wrote: In general, we may regard a perceptual experience as an informational state of the subject: it has a certain content -- the world is represented a certain way -- and hence it permits of a non-derivative classification as true or false. For an internal state to be so regarded, it must have appropriate connections with behaviour -- it must have a certain motive force upon the actions of the subject... The informational states which a subject acquires through perception are non-conceptual, or nonconceptualised. Judgements based upon such states necessarily involve conceptualisation. (Evans 1982: 226-227). [2] John McDowell has taken issue with Evans precisely over his claim that "conceptual capacities are first brought into operation only when one makes a judgement of experience, and at that point a different species of content comes into play" (McDowell 1994: 48). In contrast, he proposes that "A judgement of experience does not introduce a new kind of content, but simply endorses the conceptual content, or some of it, that is already possessed by the experience on which it is grounded" (McDowell 1994: 48-49). Ironically, in light of the ambitions of Mind and World, this sits very happily with the firmly embedded views of many traditional classical cognitivists. It has been a long-standing article of faith that, even in its most basic forms, perceptual content must be conceptual. But those who adopt this position have a heavy burden when it comes to explaining the origin and development of concepts (cf. Peacocke 1992a: 9). [3] Standardly, in line with the proposal that at least some primitive concepts must be innate, theorists like Fodor make appeal to the intrinsic character of such concepts to explain more complex conceptual contents and their essential characteristics (Fodor 1998: 130). But, of course, what is never explained is the origin of the primitive concepts themselves other than by tongue in cheek remarks about what God would have bestowed us with (cf. Fodor 1998: 129). 1 Primitive
concepts and their properties as simply assumed because of an explanatory need despite that fact that making this assumption has a paradoxical consequence -- which, in this case, is revealed by Fodor's claim that all concepts must be acquired inductively (cf. Fodor 1998: 130-132). It is ironic then that Fodor rebukes Dennett for suggesting that "it's learning a language that makes a mind systematic" (Fodor 1998: 26). He accuses those who attempt such explanations of sweeping "the problem from under the hall rug to under the rug in the parlour" (Fodor 1998: 26). But if anything is sweeping a problem under a rug, it is the unexplained postulation of conceptual contents all the way down to the bottom rungs of experience. [4] The good news is that if we opt for a nonconceptualist approach then no concepts need be innate, nor do I think any are. There is a plausible programme afoot, initiated by Cussins, which hopes explain "the construction of cognitive properties out of non-cognitive properties" (Cussins 1990: 374). For example, he encourages us to suppose "that the mind/world distinction is a phylogenetic or ontogenetic achievement" (Cussins 1990: 409). However, some advocates of nonconceptual content believe that providing this explanation will be a relatively straightforward, although clearly difficult, task given that a contentful base of nonconceptual informational states, of the kind Evans envisioned, is presupposed. While it is my concern to defend Evans' distinction between the conceptual and the nonconceptual, and indeed to draw the dividing line precisely where he draws it -- at the point where judgements come into play -- I am alive to a serious charge that McDowell raises against him. In a bid to establish that the relation between our capacities for receptivity and spontaneity are harmonious while averting endorsement of the Myth of the Given, McDowell claims that, although it is not immediately obvious, Evans' account is itself "a version of the Myth of the Given" (McDowell 1994: 51). It is not obvious because Evans clearly cuts the cords with judgement-making when he advocates a nonconceptual account of experience. Nevertheless, it is his traditional understanding of content that betrays him. In McDowell's words: "the word 'content' plays just the role in Evans' account that is played in that position by the fraudulent word 'conceptual'..." (McDowell 1994: 53). [5] This objection sticks. Moreover, if nonconceptual content is to play the important role of helping to explain the development of concepts then we must explicate the nature of such content in such a way that does not presuppose that it is truthconditional. We must also be able to say exactly what part nonconceptual responses play in judgement making and conceptual development. 2 It will be the burden of this paper to provide a sketch of how both these ends might be achieved and to offer some reasons for thinking the project is a viable one. I do this in two stages. The first is to advocate a modest biosemantic theory of nonconceptual content and the second is to show how this can shore up a Davidsonian understanding of the possession conditions for concepts (Peacocke 1992a: 5). 2. Nonconceptual content sans truth conditions [6] The nature of the content that putatively applies to nonconceptual responses stands in need of clarification. This is clear if we consider the suggestion that it might play a role in the explanation of the development of full blown concepts as Cussins does when he claims that non-conceptual content can provide the means for understanding the emergence of the "objective" from the "non-objective". There has been some confusion in the literature on what this requires. For example, Bermúdez has recently claimed that Peacocke's rejection of the "Autonomy Thesis" makes the latter's account of non-conceptual content useless in providing a
phylogenetic theory of conceptual development. The "Autonomy Thesis" states that "it is possible for a creature to be in states with nonconceptual content, even though that creature possesses no concepts at all" (Bermúdez 1994: 405). Thus, Bermúdez writes if such a thesis "is rejected, then it will be ipso facto impossible to give at least one type of developmental explanation of conceptual content in terms of nonconceptual content -- namely, the type of developmental explanation that involves explaining how a creature in states with only nonconceptual content, such as for example a new-born human infant, can develop into a full-fledged concept user" (Bermúdez 1994: 405). [7] In reply Peacocke makes it clear that Bermúdez's criticisms miss their mark. He concedes that there is potentially more than one form of non-conceptual content. In this regard, it important to note that what he calls "scenario content" -- which is equivalent to the notion of a spatial type (see also Peacocke 1992a: 64; Peacocke 1994: 420) -- is the "arguably the most fundamental type of representational content" (Peacocke 1992b: 105, emphasis mine). It is therefore clearly consistent for him to endorse the claim that "scenario content" requires a rejection of the autonomy thesis without being committed to the view that all forms of non-conceptual content require a similar rejection of that thesis. In particular, he tells us that his views are compatible with acceptance of Cussin's constructiontheoretic account of non-conceptual content. He writes: Since CT [construction-theoretic] content is distinct from scenario content, and my rejection of the Autonomy Thesis is a rejection of a thesis about scenario content, that rejection poses no obstacle to those who see either a developmental or a phylogenetic progression from states with only CT content to states with conceptual content. (Peacocke 1994: 424) 3 [8] This is an interesting response because in allowing for the possibility of what Peacocke calls CT content he is allowing for a kind of non-conceptual content that is both "pre-objective" and which "lacks correctness conditions" (see Peacocke 1994: 423, 424). But I want to argue that although the most basic form of nonconceptual content is "pre-objective" it nevertheless must have correctness conditions on the pain of not being content at all. It is important to keep these notions distinct. [9] It follows logically that in order to serve the role of explaining the development of concepts the most basic form of non-conceptual content must be being pre-objective in character. Cussins and Chrisley have laid the ground for understanding this aspect of non-conceptual content by excavating the work of Evans and Strawson (Cussins 1990; Chrisley 1993; Evans 1982; Strawson 1959). They remind us of the important distinction between objective and pre-objective modes of thought. Chrisley writes: truly objective thought is manifested in the possession and maintenance of a unified conceptual framework within which the subject can locate, and thus relate to any other arbitrary object of thought, the bit of the world thought about... Pre-objective representation involves contents that present the world, but not as the world, not as something that is or can be independent of the subject. (Chrisley 1993: 331) [10] Chrisley provides an illustration of pre-objective thought with reference to the
responses of infants before they have attained the stage of recognising object permanence (Chrisley 1993: 331). He suggests infants lack the ability to think of objects as existing unperceived and hence, they clearly lack a conceptual capacity to represent "objects" qua objects in our sense. For this reason both he and Cussins see this mode of non-objective responding as a violation of the "generality constraint" (see Cussins 1993: 661-663). Evans describes the constraint in the following terms: "if a subject can be credited with the thought a is F then he must have the conceptual resources for entertaining the thought that a is G, for every property of G of which he has a conception. This condition I call the generality constraint" (Evans 1982: 104; see also Strawson 1959: ch. 3). Thus, with reference to Chrisley's example: an infant which cannot...think of a particular object (a glass, say) as existing unseen, but it can represent its mother as being behind, out of view (on the basis of hearing her voice or feeling her arm, say). The contents of such an infant will violate the Generality Constraint, since the infant may be able to think (something like) glass in front of me and mother behind me but not glass behind me. (Chrisley 1993: 332) [11] If this is correct, then a crucial feature of non-objective modes of thought is that they lack the kind of systematicity which is a hallmark of logico-linguistic thought. Agents which only have a capacity for non-objective thought are simply not capable of making the kinds of systematic, formal substitutions which are bread and butter to conceptual thought. To accept this is to accept that it has been wrongly supposed by some that such substitutions, which are inherent in compositionality, inference making, and productivity, are also a "pervasive" criterion of cognition. 4 The tradition would have it that if an organism can think of some object, x, that it has a property, Fx, then it must also have the ability to think of some other object (of similar type) such that it could have this property as well (e.g. Fy). The same applies to relational forms, such that if a subject can represent xry, then it must also be capable of representing yrx. [12] The fact that basic non-conceptual content is not systematic is no bad thing. For states with non-conceptual content can still be behaviourally relevant even if pre-objective and non-systematic. Consider perceptual illusions such as that generated by the Müller-Lyer drawing. It can affect our perception by presenting things to us in a particular way which can be at variance to how we judge things to be. In the standard setting the difference is isolated to perceptual responses alone -- but it is not hard to imagine situations in which the illusion could affect actions as well. This is clear if we consider the plausible hypothesis that the Müller-Lyer illusion works on us because in a normal 3D setting the kind of perceptual responses it inspires are tied to our actions precisely because they help us in the detection of edges. The point to note is that while pre-objective nonconceptual content can influence an organism's response to the environment it does not do so by means of the manipulation of internal representations in the fashion that many philosophers (and classical cognitivists) have claimed. Moreover, this is specifically because the kind of representations appropriate to such basic responses are not like those that the tradition has postulated. The most basic form of non-conceptual content does not map onto what we would recognise as "objective features" of the world. Thus, strictly speaking, although such contents may be crucially involved in guiding and controlling actions, it would be a mistake to think that they are systematically representative of the objects and features of an external reality as defined by our usual scheme of reference (see Cussins 1992b: 655-656). [13] This brings us neatly back to Peacocke's second, more controversial point
about "correctness conditions". If we say that a purely perceptual, but potentially action-guiding, response is non-conceptual we still want to regard it as having content. For even in the most basic cases of non-conceptual content it would appear that things, features and situations are presented to subjects as being in a certain way. It is for this reason that such content is regarded as "representational". For example, Bermúdez writes: Conceptual and nonconceptual content are distinguished not by whether they are representational, but according to how they represent (Bermúdez 1995: 335). 5 [14] But, it is also standardly supposed that to have any kind of "representational" content at all it is necessary that there are specifiable "correctness conditions". In Crane's words: To say that any state has content is just to say that it represents the world as being a certain way. It thus has what Peacocke...calls a "correctness condition" -- the condition under which it represents correctly (Crane 1992: 139, emphasis mine). [15] Hence if the advocates of nonconceptual content hope to explain the development of full blown concepts by appeal to such content, and they follow Peacocke's suggestion about CT-content, they will be caught on the horns of a dilemma. The first horn is that if nonconceptual content is to play this role, then it cannot lean on pregiven notions of "truth" and "reference" it order to clarify its notion of content (see Cussins, 1992b). The second horn, is that if we do not appeal to "truth" and "reference" in order to clarify non-conceptual content, then it is unclear that "correctness conditions" apply. But if we cannot speak of "correctness conditions" with respect to nonconceptual content then it is doubtful that we can consider it a form of "content" at all. [16] Recognising this Cussins has recently re-formulated his account of nonconceptual content by appeal to the notion of the "realm of embodiment" which he contrasts with the "realm of reference". He objects to accounts which "suppose that representation in embodied practice is to be explained in terms of the prior, and therefore given, notions of truth and the realm of reference" (Cussins 1992b: 652, emphasis mine). His is an attempt to prioritise our experiential responding over our capacity to refer when theorising about our most basic cognitive performances (see Cussins 1992b: 653). His notion of nonconceptual content is meant to provide "a genuine notion of significant representation" which does not require taking "truth" or "reference" as basic notions. While I agree that this is needed I cannot see how an appeal to experience alone is sufficient to ground the kind of content needed to explain the emergence of an objective perspective on the world. [17] In contrast I propose that there is a form of "correctness condition" which does not equate to "truth conditions". Specifically, non-truth conditional correctness conditions can be explicated by a modest biosemantics. 6 Moreover, I suggest that only in its modest form is biosemantics a plausible theory of content. Hence, in my view a modest version of biosemantics and nonconceptual content complement one another. 3. Biosemantic normativity [18] There is nothing wrong in thinking that the most basic nonconceptual contents
have "correctness conditions" provided we are careful in understanding their source and nature. In this section I will make a case for thinking that a properly modest biosemantics is not a truth-conditional account of representation, only an account of basic intentionality. 7 A modest biosemantics accounts for the normativity which underwrites the intentional character of nonconceptual content without treating truth or reference as given. In order to make this case I review and defend some of the central features of biosemantic theory. Biosemantists claim that if we appeal to an organism's selectionist history in a principled fashion then it is possible to give a genuine naturalistic account of the nature of intentional phenomena. [19] Millikan rightly insists that the first place it is appropriate to speak of "content", with respect to biological devices, is in relation to what she calls "intentional icons" (see Millikan 1984: ch. 6; 1993: ch. 5). 8 As the name implies such icons are intentional (not intensional) in Brentano's sense in that they can be directed at features, objects or states of affairs which may or may not exist (see Millikan 1993: 109; 1989: 96). Intentional icons have three essential features (adapted from Millikan 1993: 106-107). 9 These are: (a) They are relationally adapted to some feature of the world. (b) The relation described in (a) can be characterised by means of a mathematical conceived mapping rule. (c) They have the direct proper function to guide a co-operating (consumer) device in the performance of its direct proper function(s). [20] Millikan's paradigm example of a simple intentional icon is the bee dance. Such dances are meant to generate an appropriate response in a co-operating consumer mechanism(s); the watching bee or bees. In this case, a patterned flight response which takes the bee(s) to the location of nectar. 10 A bee dance, like other intentional icons, has both indicative and imperative aspects. If the relational conditions for this characteristic type of dance are normal then it will successfully map, via some mathematically describable projection rule. This is the icon's indicative aspect. If this is satisfied then it can direct the icon-consuming bees to the nectar's location. This is the icon's imperative aspect (see Millikan 1984: 99). [21] The bee dance example also usefully illustrates the nature of derived, adapted proper functions. A token bee dance may be unique in the particular way it points a "consumer" bee(s) towards the location of nectar. It is therefore possible that a token dance could have a unique derived function to point thusly, in virtue of the fact that bee dances, as a class, have the stable direct proper function to send watching bees toward nectar (see Millikan 1984: 98; Jacob 1997: 109). This is comparable to the way in which photocopier has both the general proper function to copy "that which is placed on the glass" and the supporting adapted, derived proper function to produce copies of the particular items placed on it. [22] As is well known, there is a strong contrast between biosemantic accounts and causal/informational theories of content. This is because the former regard the proper functions of intentional icons as determined by a consideration of the dynamics of production and consumption devices, and with reference to their normal conditions for operation. Thus, Millikan stresses that: intentional icons do not, as such or in general, carry "natural information". Nor do they "covary" with or "track" what they icon. Their
definition makes no reference to how likely or unlikely they are actually to correspond to their designated environmental features, nor how likely these features are to get mapped by them (Millikan 1993: 107). [23] It is important to realise that we cannot understand the direct proper function of intentional icons by sole reference to what they regularly map, statistically understood. For example, Millikan's work sharply distinguishes "proper" functions from mechano-functions. A device can have a proper function even if it rarely, or ever succeeds, in performing it. One of her favourite ways to illustrate this point is by appeal to the case of sperm and the ovum (see Millikan 1984: 4, 29, 34). She writes "It is the biological purpose of the sperm to swim until it reaches an ovum. That is what its tail is for. But very few sperm actually achieve this biological end because ova are in such short supply" (Millikan 1993: 223). As she never tires of observing, abnormality and dysfunction only make sense against a principled understanding of proper functioning. The point is that the proper function of a sperm cannot be understood by sole reference to its mechanical dispositions. For one thing there are too many things that, neutrally described, devices are disposed to do. In contrast, what we need is a normative standard in order to determine what the device is "supposed to" do. Similarly, the direct proper functions of icons need to be explicated with reference to what effect they ought to produce given the historical pedigree -- not their current dispositions (see Millikan 1993: 160; Millikan 1993: 25). In Millikan's own words, "some of us have argued [we should] ground the needed norms in evolutionary biology -- to let Darwinian natural processes set the standards against which failures, untruths, incorrectness, etc. are measured" (Millikan 1991: 151). [24] For this reason the norms introduced by such an account must not be confused with statistical norms (Millikan 1993: 165). They appeal to a device's selectionist history in which success is measured, not by achieving a certain result x number of times above some arbitrary statistical threshold, but by a principled appeal to what was "good enough" for proliferation of the trait or response. The theory is fleshed out by appeal to the interlinked notions of "normal explanations" and "normal conditions". The former "explains the performance of a particular function, telling how it was (typically) historically performed on those (perhaps rare) occasions when it was properly performed" (Millikan 1993: 86). With respect to "normal conditions" her position is that they must "be mentioned when giving a full normal explanation for the performance of that function" (Millikan 1993: 86). To understand proper functions therefore requires reference to a device's "normal conditions" or "ideal conditions" of operation. The understanding these norms requires appeal to natural selection and there are good reasons to understand this in a decidedly etiological, or historically-based fashion. Thus Millikan says that "normal conditions" could also be described as "historically optimal conditions" (Millikan 1993: 87; see also 28). 11 [25] It is in this way that appeals to a selectionist account of proper functions, which describes the effects a device is supposed to or meant to produce, provides the guide by which we are to assess whether or not any given "intentional state" is mapped appropriately or inappropriately (see Rowlands 1997: 283). Unlike other naturalistic theories of content the biosemantic theory does not depend on locating a special kind of "mapping relation" that exists between representation and that which is represented. It is achieved by coming to understand the dynamics and norms involved in icon consumption. We get the "mapping" relation gratis once this is done. It is, as it were, fallout.
4. Defending High Church Biosemantics [26] Despite the obvious virtues of the biosemantic approach when it comes to solving a number of problems which plague other naturalistic theories of content, it has encountered the strong criticism that, appearances to the contrary, it does not provide a stable means of determining, and hence naturalising, content. Fodor has been the most vigilant opponent of this class of views and his remarks are the locus classicus of the critique. Referring to the time-worn example of the frog that can't distinguish between flies, black dots, and bee-bees, he writes: You can say why snapping is a good thing for frogs to do given their situation, whichever way you describe what they snap at. All that's required for frog snaps to be functional is that they normally succeed in getting flies into the frogs; and so long as the little black dots in the frog's Normal environment are flies, the snaps do this equally well on either account of their intentional objects (Fodor 1990b: 106). [27] It is important to be clear about this objection. It is well known that frogs tend to react to a whole range of small, dark, moving objects in the same manner (i.e. shooting out their tongues). We have already been told that appeal to device's proper function provides the logical space for a normative assessment of misrepresentation. But such assessment requires that we look to "the most proximate Normal explanation for full proper performance" (Millikan 1984: 100, emphasis original). Millikan's stipulation leads us to favour the view that the function of the tongue-snapping behaviour is not disjunctive at all; rather it is directed at flies and flies alone -- since ingesting these served the ancestors of this type of frog in the evolutionary history of these creatures. It alone enters into a full explanation of why the response mechanism proliferated (see Millikan 1993: 213-214). 12 But her version of biosemantics focuses on the fact that direct proper function of intentional icons must be defined in relation to the benefits which accrue to the consumer device(s) in the organism. 13 Thus, the frog's tongue-snapping behaviour is designed to get its dinner. Given this, its tongue-action should be directed at the range of edible objects which are compatible with the effective working of its stomach, in normal conditions of the kind which have benefited its ancestors. 14 [28] Bearing these points in mind, Fodor's critique has the following form: He agrees that from the selectionist perspective, a frog's inner icon only misrepresents in those cases where its snapping behaviour is not in line with the normal conditions that are part of an explanation of why the device was selected. But he suggests that if in the historical environment of the frogs' ancestors black dots of such and such a size, speed and shape were in fact coextensive with flies (or were often enough flies), then it doesn't matter which way we now choose to describe the frog's detectiondevice. In giving our explanation we can call it a fly or black-dot detector without consequence. All that matters is that a device with the propensity to detect small, dark moving things, in fact, aided this type of frog (or at least did not competitively disadvantage them) in the normal habitat of its ancestors and hence was "reproduced". His claim is that historical explanations of this kind do not provide a principled basis for making distinctions between intensionally alternative but explanatorily adequate descriptions (see Rowlands 1997: 284; see also Godfrey-Smith 1994b: 273-274). As he says: "The context '--- happened' is transparent for the '---' position, so it would be sort of surprising if contexts defined in terms of it weren't transparent too" (Fodor 1991: 296). 15 He claims it doesn't
matter how we choose to describe the function of the frog's detector-mechanism because, metaphysically speaking, all that mattered to that selection was the neutrally described capacity to detect small, moving black dots. 16 This is consistent with the fact that what was detected were often enough flies and these alone provided the ancestor frogs with (enough) nutrition to get by. [29] There is something right and wrong in both these responses. On the one hand, Fodor is right in thinking that, when giving our selectionist explanations, how we choose to describe what-it-was that the ancestor frogs were meant to detect couldn't have mattered, metaphysically speaking. The only thing that could have made a difference to the selection of such detection devices was that they enabled frogs equipped with them to respond well enough to proliferate. On the other hand, Millikan is certainly right to think that it is the getting of nutrition which is responsible for proliferation of the frogs (and their detection devices) and hence describing their detection devices as fly-detectors has explanatory priority. For this reason Fodor's outright rejection of teleology gets the order of explanation wrong. Without a top-down, teleological account we would not fully understand why the mechanisms were selected at all. In this light, Neander's comments about what Darwin's interests are apposite in response to Fodor's remarks. She writes: [Darwin] might wonder which feature of the A/B situation was beneficial to the organism, and why it was beneficial, and he might wonder how the organism detects that it is an A/B situation, and which feature of such situations the organism is responding to. And the answers to these questions are not description insensitive. Perhaps A was the benefit and B was the stimulus, or perhaps B was the benefit and A was the stimulus, or perhaps A was both the benefit and the stimulus, or perhaps B was. (Neander 1995: 122) [30] Having said this, looking from the bottom up, Millikan's account has appeared explanatorily insufficient to some. Her critics suggest that if we concentrate wholly on what actually benefits (or benefited) organisms as the basis for determining what an icon ought to "represent" then we are in danger of counter-intuitively demanding too much of these devices (Neander 1995: 126-129; Jacob 1997: 123-124). Although a biosemantist herself, Neander makes this objection to Millikan. She illustrates the problem with appeal to the example of a male hoverfly. According to an exclusively benefit-based account a male hoverfly "misrepresents if he chases an infertile female or one who is soon to be the dinner of some passing bat" (Neander 1997: 127). Likewise the frog "misrepresents" if the fly it detects happens to be carrying a frog-killing virus or if it isn't in fact nutritious. For this reason it might be thought that on a benefit-based account the correct description of proper function of such devices is to lead hoverflies to "fertile mates" or enable frogs to get "nutritious protein". But putting things like this raises questions about the perceptual abilities of such organisms. For example, Jacob questions whether we can seriously credit organisms with the capacity to detect that which is "good for them" (Jacob 1997: 123). [31] This worry inspires Neander's proposal that when offering a biosemantic account we ought to look, as biologists do, at the "lowest level at which the trait in question is an unanalysed component of the [proper] functional analysis" (Neander 1995: 129). In saying this she reminds us that "what counts as "lowest" is relative to the trait in question" (Neander 1995: 129). This last point is graphically illustrated by figure 1 (modified from a version in Neander 1995: 125).
[32] Considering this diagram we might wonder: Which level and its associated proper function matters to intentional content? Neander's answer is that we should look to the lowest level on the grounds that this reflects sound biological practice. She writes that "with respect to a given part (P) of an organism, biologists should (and do) give priority to that level of description which is most specific to P - the lowest level of description in the functional analysis before we go sub-p" (Neander 1995: 128). [33] But this move is ill motivated. For it is wholly consistent with Millikan's benefit-based account of the direct proper function of intentional icons that there exist logically stacked proper functions of the kind Neander describes. What her diagram reveals is simply how various higher level ends are served by the successful performance of the lower level devices or mechanisms. Against this background we can see why Millikan's distinction between a device's direct proper function and its derived, adapted proper function is so important. Recall, in the case of the bees, that the ultimate source of the bee dance's derived proper function to direct the consumer to a particular location. This specific function is inherited from its direct proper function to get the consumer bee to nectar. For this reason Millikan assigns predominance to a device's direct proper function when determining the content of an icon. Looking at matters in this light reveals that there is no need to make a choice between high and low biosemantics. [34] If we accept that these levels are complementary then surely it is the case that the correct selectionist explanation of a hoverfly's target is "female hoverfly" while the frog's target is "fly". This can be seen in light of the concerns about perceptual capacities. In the normal environment of their ancestors it was the (perhaps rare) detection of these kinds of things which accounts for the proliferation of these kinds of detection devices. It was these types of thing that they were detected when all was well. In the normal environment of their ancestors detecting these kinds of thing was good enough. Hence, it is these types of thing that ought to be detected. And ought implies can. In my view, the Neander-Jacob objection is confused because the notion of a capacity is equivocal. In this case it would be wrong to define it comparatively. Of course it is true that given the nature of their sense organs frogs
have a greater capacity to detect "small moving black dots" than they have to detect "flies". But this would only be a worry if we were defining the biosemantic normativity in statistical terms -- which we are not. In the right conditions they have the capacity to detect flies. [35] Second, although Neander can rightly deploy the terminology of proper functions with respect to a device's lowest level of operation there are serious problems in taking this low road when it comes to understanding content. This is so even though it is true that such devices can malfunction in a way that demands a normative understanding. 17 For example, Neander points out that: A sick frog might R-token at a snail if it was dysfunctional in the right way. Damaging the frog's neurology, interfering in its embryological development, tinkering with its genes, giving it a virus, all of these could introduce malfunction and error. Therefore, the theory I am defending does not reduce content to the non-normative notion of indication or natural meaning. (Neander 1995: 131; see Jacob 1997: 118, 134) [36] It is with this observation in mind that Neander proposes a kind of "philosophical marriage of Fodor and Millikan". Such a union is supposed to provide a biologically plausible means of determining content (Neander 1995: 137). But the price of this manoeuvre is to sacrifice an account of content altogether. This is clear if we consider the fact that Neander's account re-introduces the problem of distality which Millikan's version of biosemantics laid to rest. Neander notes this herself by telling us that low church biosemantics "seems to drive us to proximal content...[for example,] it is, after all, by responding to a retinal pattern of a particular kind that the frog responds to small dark moving things" (Neander 1995: 136). 18 This is not a trivial point; low church biosemantics violates one of the minimal conditions for a device to count as an intentional icon. Unless we have independent reason to think that a device has the proper function of directing the organism towards some external state of affairs, we have no grounds for thinking it "represents". The mere fact that a device can malfunction is not sufficient to regard it as having representational capacities. 5. The virtues of modesty [37] Having now defended Millikan's version of biosemantics from some recent criticisms I want to encourage adoption of it in a modest form. Ambitious biosemantics accounts suffer because they attempt to unpack the notion of basic representation in terms of truth-evaluable content (see Godfrey-Smith, 1994b). But I am unhappy with Millikan's claim that biosemantic theory provides a "non-vacuous" ground for a correspondence theory of truth (see Millikan 1993: 86-94). Nor is she alone in advocating this use. 19 Consider these remarks of Papineau and McGinn. The biological function of any given type of belief is to be present when a certain condition obtains: that then is the belief's truth condition (Papineau 1987: 64). 20 [T]eleology turns into truth conditions...[because a] sensory state fulfils its function of indicating Fs by representing the world as containing Fs; and it fails in discharging that function when what it represents is not how things environmentally are (McGinn 1989: 148, 151). 21
[38] By such lights all "representations", whatever other features they exhibit, or fail to exhibit, have truth-conditional content. While consideration of the scope of this claim may give us pause, the biosemantist re-assures us that only humans really have beliefs with propositional content; lesser creatures have less sophisticated representations (i.e. proto-beliefs, sub-doxastic states, etc.). Even so these crude representations are still true or false. Thus Millikan's examples of simple organisms are specifically meant to "make it clear how very local and minimal may be the mirroring of the environment is accomplished by an intentional icon" (Millikan 1993: 106). The thought is that such content enters into our natural history at a very early phase and becomes tied up with more and more complex cognitive dynamics as we travel up the phylogenetic tree. It is because we can describe systems of representation of graded complexity that we can explain the emergence of propositional content as a late development. For instance, we can mark the differences between creatures which are hard-wired for a particular environment and those which display plasticity (i.e. the ability to learn to cope with new environments). This point is crucial to note lest we be led astray by talk of bees and frogs into thinking that there are no differences between their form of representation and ours. [39] Millikan lists six fundamental differences between human and animal representations which "secure our superiority, [and] make us feel comfortably more endowed with mind" (Millikan 1989a: 297). 22 The two most important on her list are the fact that we are able to make logical inferences by means of propositional content. Thus, only representations of the kind which respect the law of non-contradiction can be deemed to have propositional content (Millikan 1989a: 296-297). In a nutshell, she holds that there are distinct types and levels of "representation" and that not all "representations" have the kind of content appropriate to full-fledged beliefs or desires. What this means is that biosemantists need not, and should not, hold that content of the frog's intentional icon is captured by the conceptual content of the English sentence "There is an edible bug" or any other near equivalent. Millikan is explicit about this. With reference to bees she writes: bee dances, though (as I will argue) these are intentional items, do not contain denotative elements, because interpreter bees (presumably) do not identify the referents of these devices but merely react to them appropriately. (Millikan 1984: 71). [40] What I take from this remark is that we "identify" the object that the bee is directed at as "nectar" using our own conceptual scheme. Indeed, we settle on this description because it is explanatorily relevant when giving a full, selectionist explanation of the proper function of bee dances. This much is incontestable. Moreover, due consideration of this fact reveals that although Fodor's critique concerning the indeterminacy of fixing intensional descriptions with respect to our selectionist explanations fails to undermine the biosemanticist project in the way he proposes, it is apposite to the extent that it highlights the fact that such descriptions are intensional in a way that the content of intentional icons is not. A better way to explicate the kind of content appropriate to such icons is to follow Rowlands and lean on Gibson's notion of affordances. Affordances are defined as "relational properties of things; they have be specified relative to the creature in question" (Rowlands 1997: 287). In this regard, Rowlands writes: "Thus, the surface of a lake affords neither support nor easy locomotion for a horse, but it offers both of these things for a water bug. To speak of an affordance is to speak elliptically; an affordance exists only in relation to particular organisms" (Rowlands 1997: 287). Armed with this notion he suggests that the organism must be able to detect the
affordances of its environment (as they relate to it) but not necessarily the objects of the environment per se (as we might describe them from our perspective). From this angle the "organismic proper function of the mechanism is to enable the rattlesnake to detect a certain affordance of the environment, namely eatability. This allows the attribution of content such as 'eatability!' or 'eatability, there!' to the rattlesnake" (Rowlands 1997: 291). The fact that we describe the proper function of the snake's detection device as one of locating "mice", and can do so on principled explanatory grounds, is incidental (see Rowlands 1997: 291). I am extremely sympathetic to the spirit of this proposal. Nevertheless we must be wary of treating it as a suggestion that we ought to positively designate the content of the snake's icon in terms of a concept such as "eatability". [41] This fits with the fact that in order to make a serious ascription of propositional content, the subject in question must manifest "finely discriminating" behaviour over a considerable period of time. As Davidson observes, for the most part, only a person's speech acts constitute such behaviour. 23 In daily life what makes the ascription of propositional content to linguistic utterances expedient is the defeasible assumption that others speak our language. We can ask questions such as, "Do you mean this (e.g. some proposition) by that (e.g. some other proposition)". It is only if a speaker actively makes such choices, by accepting some propositions as adequate descriptions of their words, while rejecting others, that interpreters are able to ascribe propositional contents. Philosophical speaking, to discover what someone believes or "means" we must effectively put their utterances through an "intensionality test". The intensionality test essentially reveals in what way, and to what degree, a subject's words or thought is resistant to co-referential substitution. [42] Imagine that Farah believes her homework is due on the 21st of March, but has only limited knowledge about the other ways in which that day might be correctly denoted. Although it is acceptable to her that we describe her thought about "the day the homework is due" by replacing it with propositions (2) and (3) below, she stoutly objects if we attempt to substitute it with proposition (1). 24 (1) "The homework is due on the first day of spring" (2) "The homework is due on the 21st of March" (3) "The homework is due tomorrow" [43] By considering this simple application of the "intensionality test", we learn several things. Firstly, in discovering what a person means by his or her utterances we are effectively locating the propositional content of such utterances in relation to other propositional contents. The content of any sentence or proposition is determined, at least in part, by its place in the "logical geography" of other contents. 25 Notice that the way in which Farah conceives of "The day the homework is due" is constrained in part by her other thoughts about that day. Farah's belief about "when the homework is due" could be refined if she discovered that there is a connection between "the first day of spring" and "the 21st of March". This is related to the fact that a subject who is aware of this connection, ex hypothesi, has a conception of that day which is different and richer than Farah's. [44] Also, by noting the pattern of inter-connections between propositional contents we can decide when someone is expressing a proposition which is the same, or similar, to our own. For instance, if my expression of the proposition "Scotland is
beautiful" is to carry the same or similar meaning to yours, then we had better agree on quite a few other important propositions; such as "Scotland is North of England", "Slugs are not beautiful", "North is not East", "Scotland is a country", etc. (see Davidson 1984a: 257; Evnine 1991: 120-121). As Davidson frequently reminds us, there need be no definite set of beliefs (and attendant propositional contents) upon which we must agree in order to make such similarity claims. If such comparisons are to be plausible there need only be a reasonable degree of agreement (Davidson 1985c: 475). The point is that in order for there to be propositional contents there must be detailed patterns to speech and thought. 26 In contrast, intentional icons do not have any propositional content as such, they are simply responses directed at creature-relative "affordances" (rather than objects per se). Thus, Rowlands is right to suggest that: One can, therefore, speak of the mechanism detecting flies, or enabling the frog to detect flies, but this is only in a secondary and derivative sense, and reflects neither the algorithmic nor the organismic proper function of the mechanism (Rowlands 1997: 295) [45] Any attempt to characterise the content of such icons in conceptual terms is an inappropriate attempt to deploy our own standard scheme of reference. But if one is willing to concede this then it is difficult to see what could motivate thinking of basic representations as having truth conditions. If such icon's lack intensional content then it is surely misguided to think of their mappings to the world in such terms. If icons are not proposition, and given that sense determines reference, we might ask: What is true? How can we have a truth relation if one of the crucial relata is absent. Hence, even if a modest version of biosemantics gives us a handle on the bivalent content of intentional icons it is a mistake to think of such content in truthconditional terms. For these reasons I am critical of the idea that the biological norms which underwrite the simplest "representations", i.e. intentional icons, could be straightforwardly deployed in "flatfooted correspondence views of representation and truth" (Millikan 1993: 12). 27 Contra Millikan, I maintain that although intentional icons are normatively directed at features of the world their "correctness conditions" are not best understood as truth conditions. Biosemanticists should not assume that natural selection grounds truth, even though the mappings that emerge at this level may ultimately play a crucial role in understanding its nature. 6. The emergence of objectivity [46] Moreover, when we consider how nonconceptual content might help in explaining the emergence of truth and objectivity it becomes clear that it is not just the holistic complexity of propositional thought that ties it to linguistic practice. If it were only an issue of such complexity then one might simply agree with Lockwood that "acquiring a language or concepts may be more akin to progressively finer tuning of an instrument with a vast number of strings than it is to learning a set of rules" (Lockwood 1989: 122). This analogy is misleading because the divide is much deeper. Developing a conceptual perspective on things is not a mere linear refinement of a single skill. Minimally, to speak of truth requires that the subject in question has a capacity for propositional judgement. As Dummett notes "In order to say anything illuminating about the concept of truth, then, we must link it with that of judgement or assertion" (Dummett 1993: 157). Furthermore, understanding the conditions which make judgements, and the assessment of truth, possible is a complicated business. Hence, Dummett is also right to make the further claim that "A philosophical account of judgements lies, however, in their having a further